St. Ann Expands So 'All Are Welcome'

"Let us build a houses where love can dwell and all can safely live;
A place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive;
Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace;
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions;
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place."
(All Are Welcome, by Marty Haugen, © 1989 OCP Publications)

by Brian Irving
Special to the NC Catholic March 7, 2003

When a determined group of three African-American Catholic families banded together in 1939 to form a parish where they could worship freely, they celebrated their first Mass in a barber shop on Gillespie St. The eight people who gathered for that first celebration on Christmas Eve probably had no idea that 62 years later their church would grow to more than 400 families and become one of the most culturally diverse churches in the city, where all are welcome.

In the 1930s, Catholics were a tiny minority in the South. Black Catholics were even rarer, subjected to the added indignity of segregation. When they attended Mass at the only Catholic church in Fayetteville, they had to sit in the back pews marked with a black and gold sign: "Colored Catholics Sit Here."

Within a year of that first Mass, this intrepid band built their own church on North Cool Spring St. and welcomed a newly-ordained priest from South Boston, Mass. as pastor. Most of the funding for the church came from a $4,500 gift from St. Ann Parish in the Boston, for which the Fayetteville church was named.

Today, the parish includes an elementary school, built in the 1950s and a social hall. Within a month, they will dedicate a new expanded sanctuary which will more than quadruple the worship space.

The expanded sanctuary connects the original church with the social hall and preserves the architectural style of both. "The architect did an excellent job of tying it all together," said Les Griffin, who headed the fundraising effort. "He cleverly tied everything into a unity of presence and presentation."

The architect, Eric Lindstrom of the Fayetteville firm Shuller, Ferris, Lindstrom & Associates, drew inspiration from parishioners for his design. "They obviously had a strong connect to the original church and social hall," he said. "The idea of tying the buildings together came from the members of the church themselves."

Lindstrom has designed other churches, but this was his first Catholic project. At the start, it seemed he had very little space to work. "My goal was to match the existing church and social hall as best I could," Lindstrom said.

The gathering area, between the social hall and the expanded church, was designed to tie the two buildings together and create an overflow space, he said. He also followed the latest guidelines for Catholic church construction, including a full-immersion baptismal at the entrance.

Soffits, or bulkheads, circle the interior. While they appear to be balconies, they’re not designed to hold people, Lindstrom explained. Instead, they serve sensory and practical purposes. The structures break up sound waves, thus improving acoustics, and visual straight lines. On the practical side, the help channel circulation around the perimeter and conceal air conditioning and heating ducts and indirect lighting.

"There’s a high level of detail, more than you usually see in a church this small," said Art Wesche, who oversees property and construction for the Diocese of Raleigh. The architectural style, Colonial Federal, is unique for a Catholic church said Father Thomas Mallory, OSFS, St. Ann pastor. "It has a lot of detail, much character and it’s very bright," he said

"The church is a tribute to people of the parish, past and present," Father Malloy told parishioners. "It is the work of your hands and it’s a beautiful work."

The design process itself brought together diverse ideas from this multi-cultural parish. "We had our disagreements, but I was impressed by how well we worked together, even when we disagreed," said Bill Pollitt, who chaired the building committee. Everyone brought a different point of view and everyone listened to each other, he said.

Some ideas were totally new to committee members. For example, the pews will be mahogany but will have white ends. "Many people had never seen that in a Catholic church," Pollitt said.

Because of the welcoming spirit and diversity the parish prides itself in, the building committee chose the Marty Haugen hymn "All Are Welcome" as their theme song for the building campaign.

The visual and emotional impact of the design is sometimes overwhelming. When long-time parishioner Joyce Moreau walked into the nearly completed sanctuary for the first time, she started to cry. "I may have to do something I swore I would never do again," the widow said. "I may have to get married again, because this church is too beautiful for just my funeral."

The altar is virtually in the same spot as in the old church, Griffin noted. "The design honors the conviction that the land on which our ancestors founded this church is sacred ground. There’s a sense of belonging, of purpose." As one parishioner stated it, "we can stand in our present and look to our past, or we can stand in our past and look to our present."

Griffin said the new church will also leave a double legacy for those who follow. Not only does the design honor the past and offer a vision for the future, it also significantly increases the earthly value of the "sacred ground." Before construction, the property was worth about $1 million. When the $2.2 million construction project is complete, it could raise the valued to $3.8 million, Griffin said.

St. Ann is not the only church that’s contributing to downtown revitalization. St. John Episcopal Church, on nearby Green St. just complete a $2.5 million expansion and renovation. They built a two-story family center, which includes a catering kitchen and gymnasium. The project has enabled them to triple enrollment in their daycare center and expand their outreach programs, said Eddie Waren, building project coordinator.

Further up Hay St., Highland Presbyterian Church is expanding along Arsenal Ave. The $5 million project includes renovation of the church, a new two-story education building and a gym.

The project also included the addition of two classrooms and a multi-purpose room to the school. Part of the funding for that project came from an anonymous matching grant of $100,000 from the Youth Growth Stock Trust managed by United Way of Cumberland County. The donor was impressed by the parish’s Neighborhood Youth Center, an outreach program for students in surrounding low income and public housing areas.

"We owe a debt of gratitude to those courageous first eight Black families who set us on this formation journey," said Michael Patterson, St. Ann’s director of religious education. "We salute them for the legacy of this parish and celebrate unabashedly what we have become."

"And we’re still in the process of becoming," added Griffin.